Golden Girls and Green Boys
by Connie Nervegas
Summary: Crossover. The boys meet the girls from Miami and find that they have more in common than you would think.
1. A Rose by Any Other Name

_Watching The Golden Girls and thought up this little exchange. M.D. Owen came up with some of the gags. Must give credit._

**A Rose by Any Other Name…**

"Hello, Mikey's house of fun," Mikey sighed into the phone. It was anything but a house of fun today. Leo held a mop and pointed at a dust bunny that Raph missed during his general sweep of the kitchen. Raph didn't appreciate the critique and used the broom handle as a bo, whacking Leo in the face.

"Now, you can clean up my nose blood," Leo said, pinching his nose and strutting off to the bathroom.

An old lady's voice said on the other end of the line, "I'm Rose Nylund and I'm trying to find a pizza."

"You're calling the right place," Mikey said as he flung a nunchuck in the air, watched it windmill like an airplane propeller and caught it in his hand again. "We have pizza coming out of our asses here."

"Well, I don't want it out of anybody's ass," the old lady said as if pizzas came out of asses on a regular basis. "Out of a regular pizza oven would be fine, although I don't know how things work in New York and I don't want to put anybody out. I want to order a New York pizza."

Mikey sat down and ignored Leo's tyrannical demands to dust the computer. "We aren't a delivery place. I wish we were. We could make some money then. I make bitchin' pizza. But I'm a ninja and we're supposed to be secretive and so we can't be around people." He realized for a split second that he had just outted himself to a stranger, but instantly forgot.

The lady had a happy voice and he could hear the big smile on the other end. "This reminds me of when I was a little girl back in St. Olaf…"

"Where's that?" he asked.

There was silence on the other end of the phone.

"Aren't you going to tell the story?"

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said. "That's usually as far as I get."

"Where's St. Olaf?" Mikey picked up a game controller and wondered if he could hook up the Xbox and play Left4Dead 2 without Leo noticing.

"Minnesota. Where are you?"

"Um…" He wondered for a second. Maybe it was a trick. Maybe she was employed by one of their many enemies. Maybe they commissioned nice old ladies to call them on the phone and be nice to them until they gave up their location. Mikey giggled at the image of old women in foot ninja uniforms, stabbing at them with knitting needles and whacking them with walkers. "I'm in New York City."

"Oh, okay. Well, this reminds me of the story of St. Olaf's only ninja, Bruce Leebenschnitzel. He was the most respected and feared warrior in all of Minnesota except for Greta Von Snorkelbottom of St. Gustaf, but you must know that."

"He must have been a bad dude. My brother Leo is pretty epic, but nobody knows him."

"Well, Bruce was known for his deadly weapons, his spinning nunchucks of frozen herring given to him by his Master. Sensei Trout-san. Anyway, he broke the ninja code and stole from the people St. Olaf. He would sneak through the town square every day at noon…"

"Huh?" Mikey asked. "At noon? In broad daylight? I mean, I'm good… But not that good. Were there lots of shadows?"

"No," Rose said as if he were missing a really obvious point. "Nobody can see ninjas. They're invisible. It must be really hard for you to shave if you can't see yourself in the mirror. Bruce went all over St. Olaf stealing tractors and cows and sometimes even shrews."

"Aren't they hard to catch?" Mikey pictured a new ninja exercise. Snatching small rodents off the ground as they skittered around their feet. It actually sounded fun.

"Oh, yeah. They screamed and hit Bruce with their rolling pins. And the town elders were torn between punishing Bruce for stealing all the tractors and hiding them or commending him on kidnapping their wives. But then one day on the hottest day of the year, Bruce's herring melted. So the town elders decided to capture him the only way they knew how…"

"How?" Mikey asked, now totally mesmerized.

"The mayor called out 'Marco!' because nobody could see Bruce. And he called back 'Polo!' And then everybody realized that Bruce was the mayor all along. And then it made sense why he had suddenly passed a law that fish could be sworn in as deputy mayor. And so then they realized that the new tractor art sculpture exhibits were really THEIR tractors. He'd hidden them in plain view because he was the best ninja in all of St. Olaf."

Mikey scratched his head and wrinkled up his face. "So what happened to the shrews? Did anybody find them?"

"Oh, yes," she said happily. "The shrews all got jobs as models with the Arm and Hammer Baking Powder Company."

He thought about it for a minute. "That was the coolest story ever!" he gushed.

"Really? My friend Dorothy always says she wants me to pay her back for the time I just wasted that she'll never get back. Do you know any stories?"

"I know all kinds of stories! I'm a writer," Mikey said, squirming and knocking one of the couch cushions on the floor. Don sat next to him and hissed quietly as his brother wiggled, making a nest for himself. "This is a story about my brothers. About epic betrayal. My brother Leonardo Epic Hamato had just returned from his trip to South America where he stood around looking like Errol Flynn and rescuing lovely maidens from the evil clutches of guerillas…"

"You know Fay Ray would have been a lot better off if a nice ninja had rescued her. Then she wouldn't have been carried to the top of the Empire State Building like that. It must have been real lucky for your brother that he was in a banana republic."

"Haha! Yeah," Mikey laughed. "…and these girls offered him their bodies in exchange for his services. But Leo was a gentleman and refused to allow them to debase themselves in such a way, even though he's really horny."

"My friend is really horny. We should send her to South America. Maybe she would catch your brother's disease that makes him not-have sex."

"It's a disease called being a turtle."

"Maybe if Blanche were a turtle, she wouldn't be so horny. I can't imagine turtles get much play. What with how slow they move."

Mikey sat up suddenly and bumped into Don's arm, causing him to spill his coffee. "Turtles are fast! I'm the fastest guy in New York!"

"What a coincidence. Blanche is the fastest woman in Miami!" she said in astonishment. "Isn't it amazing how much we have in common? My friends are from New York and I told them I would buy them a New York style pizza. So I thought I would order one and have it delivered to our house."

"Huh…" Mikey thought for a second. He lay on his stomach and put his feet in Don's lap. "Aren't you in Miami?"

"Well, it says in the book that they deliver anywhere."

"Really? You should call them and demand that they deliver or else you're going to… I don't know… make a voodoo doll out of pepperoni and torture them with itchy scalp."

"Oh, I can't do that," she said. "That reminds me of something that happened once in St. Olaf. You see, the St. Olaf Wooden Shoe and Voodoo Spell commission issued a decree that anyone who could… Oh, you were telling a story. Go on…"

"Okay. Well my brother Leo got back from South America and after we got rid of the fleas and lice and worms he had… and he had lots of parasites. It was disgusting. We had to practically boil him in gasoline. He smelled like a gas station. Anyway, Leo gets back home and my other brother Raph was going around in this metal suit as a vigilante. He's really tough and brave and he kind of looks like Swiss cheese from all the bullet wounds."

"He's yellow?" she asked.

"No, he's green. He's just got all kinds of holes in him now. And they got into this big fight and Raph broke Leo's katanas and then… well, lots of bad stuff happened. But Leo's okay now. We saved him because I'm awesome."

"You're awesome and your brother is epic. I wish I had awesome and epic brothers. Mine were short and allergic to wool, which was unfortunate since cotton was banned in St. Olaf. I'm sorry that Leo and Raph didn't get along for a while. You must be happy that they're friends now."

"Yes, it's really cool to have them both home and back to normal."

Raph pounded on the bathroom door and then turned the knob when he wasn't instantly answered. Leo sat on the toilet and Raph walked straight into the room without any explanation and shut the door. That's how you know you're family, Mikey thought. You have all your most important conferences while someone is sitting on the toilet.

"Do you have any brothers?" Mikey asked. He needed to get this lady's phone number and make Raph talk to her. That would be priceless.

"Oh, I have three brothers and five sisters. There were nine of us back on the farm. My sisters are Holly, Lily, Violet, Fern and Ivy. My brothers are Carnation, Snapdragon and Baby's Breath. What's your name?"

"Oh, I'm Michelangelo. Can I be your grandson?"

She heartily said, "Sure! I don't have a Michelangelo. I'll knit you a sweat for Christmas. What size are you?"

Mikey fidgeted and looked down at his green three fingered hands. "Actually, I'm a mutant. I'm a sixteen year old mutant. So a sweater would have to be really weird."

"So…" she said slowly. "You're a teenage mutant ninja turtle?"

Mikey's eyes bulged and he quickly looked around the room at his brothers. Don idly pulled wires out of an old radio and Raph and Leo muttered to each other in the john. "Yeah, that's right."

"I have to ask a question because I would be stupid if I didn't," she said. Mikey groaned inwardly. He knew it was too good to be true. Even nice old ladies were freaked out by them on the phone. They didn't have to see them. "So do you and your brothers live in a giant aquarium like they have at the dentist's office? And can you stick you head and arms up in your shell? Where do you buy clothes? I don't recall ever seeing a Turtle section at Neiman Marcus."

Mikey smiled and sighed. "No, we don't live in an aquarium. We live… in a relatively dry place."

Don cocked his head, suddenly suspicious.

"And we're pretty normal; except for that… yeah… we don't wear clothes."

"You go around naked?" she said.

"Look, I'll call you back if you give me your number. I have to go." He glared at Don, who was holding his hand out for the phone. Mikey scribbled Rose's phone number onto the back of one of Raph's dirty magazines and said, "I really liked talking to you, Rose. Tell me some more St. Olaf stories next time."

"Oh, I will! And good luck with your brothers. They remind me of mine. I'll tell you that story some other time. I have to call a place that delivers genuine New York pizza to Miami. Goodbye."

Mikey hung up the phone and tried not to look into Don's beady and suspicious eyes.


	2. Blanched

**Blanched**

Those fucking terrorists would pay, Raph thought as he swung out of the barge, lightly fell into the water and hid under the gangplank. Maybe it would wash off the accumulation of sweat and sea air. He'd been on the boat for over a month. Sitting in the hold with the rats and holding his sais with tight knuckles.

Leo was somewhere in Mexico, held hostage by terrorists from a drug cartel. Why couldn't he leave fuck alone? He always has to be the cowboy.

And now Raph stood in a port in Miami, dripping wet next to a dive bar with corrugated metal siding covered in rust. He needed a drink. Whiskey. Lots and lots of whiskey. His numb toes burned and the ache of knowing that Leo was probably somewhere in Mexico being mutilated made the rest of him cold too.

What would he do to them when he found them? He crept through the shadows of a warehouse with 75% of the windows blown out, looking up at the palm trees. Never seen those before. Not nearly as nice as good old pine trees. Give Raph an oak any time. These things didn't look like trees.

He wore a black trench coat with a hoodie underneath and hoped he was covered sufficiently or else that everyone else would be too drunk to notice any green skin.

Then he heard a voice like Vivien Leigh saying, "Get your hands off of me, you hairy ape!"

Instincts took over and guided him back to the alley. He glanced overhead at the Rust Anchor sign as he passed and caught a glimpse of another sign that read "Dorothy Zbornak, performing every Friday."

In the shadows of the alley an older woman with obviously dyed dark hair wrestled a man wearing a decent suit. It looked something from Miami Vice, but it must have cost some money, as ugly as it was. The lady wore a sailor costume with a fluffy white skirt.

Raph took a few steps into the alley and knocked out the sucker with one hit. Not at all satisfying. The lady straightening her tam and said, "Well, you just rescued me from that brute! That Sam Wilcox! See if he ever gets me to play Sailor Girl and the Sea Monster with me again!"

Then the lady reached out and took a hold of his arm. He was too entranced by her sailor costume to make a proper and hasty retreat. She smirked and dripped charm like maple syrup, jutting out her hip at him as she squeezed his arm and said, "Well, your arms are just like steel, aren't they? What's your name, darlin'? I want to show my knight in shining armor how grateful I am."

"Uh…" Raph's eyes widened slightly, wondering what kind of gratefulness she had in mind. "Raphael."

"Oh, why are you wearing all black like that? Makes you like a criminal."

Raph growled out, "I ain't a criminal," as he turned to leave.

"Oh, don't leave, Raphael! Oh, I love how that sounds. Are you Hispanic?"

"I'm… leaving." Raph's feet hesitated as he moved back towards the door of the Rusty Anchor. It didn't seem right to leave this old lady in the fetish costume wandering around by herself. "What the fuck are you doing out here alone dressed like that? Even ladies your age can get raped, you know."

"I know that I do look stunning for my age. I can't help it if men are overcome by my dazzling looks at the ripe old age of thirty-eight."

He sighed heavily and closed the coat tighter to hide his sais. "Look, lady. I've been at sea for over a month and I want…"

Her voice rose at least an octave. "Oh, at sea! So you're a sailor? Well, it so happens that I'm a sailor too."

Raph sneered as he looked her up and down. He had to admit; she did have good legs for an old lady.

"Don't you want to spend some time with a fellow longshoreman and we can talk about our trade. Like knot tying and singing shanties and… oh, I don't know… swabbing the deck.. or swabbing other things." She giggled like a sixteen year old debutante.

He wasn't quite sure what she was insinuating, but he took an awkward step backward anyway and stumbled into a trash can. It clattered loudly and sent a stray cat screaming out of the alley. "Lady, I'm not… you don't want me swabbing you okay. I'm… not legal…"

"Oh, I don't mind if you're an alien. I'm very open minded about other cultures. I eat Korean food all the time." She straightened her skirt and wiggled her hips.

"Ugh. Lady." His face was going red and he was glad for the concealment of the coat and hoodie. "I'm not… on the market. Sorry."

"Really? Oh, well. Let me buy you a drink at least." She instantly broke eye contact with him and pulled out a compact and powdered her nose. "I at least want to do that. What would it look like if word got round that I was stingy with men who rescue me? Come on, Raphael."

He followed her into the Rusty Anchor, hovering behind her, his hands in his pockets. All the men in the bar turned towards them and his shoulders hunched down. They all said, "Hi, Blanche!" in unison.

"Hi, boys! This fine young stallion, Raphael, just rescued me from a rude man who was trying to take advantage of me and I want you all to be nice to him. He's my special guest of honor. Now you give him any drink he wants, Gary."

* * *

Three hours later, Raph and Blanche sat at a table in the back of the bar. Raph threw his head back and bawled out a laugh.

"And then my sister Charmaine said, 'Blanche, you knew Billy Joe belonged to me.' And I said, 'Yes, I know that, but aren't sisters supposed to share?'"

He shoved away one of the empty glasses with his elbow and it shattered on the floor. "Oh, ninja reflexes!" he yelled.

Blanche didn't pay attention to his outburst and continued, "I never got along with my sisters. I only really got along with Clayton. We used to have such similar ideas and tastes. Same taste in music. Same taste in movies. Same taste in men."

Raph cocked his eye ridges slightly. Then he cried out, "Your brother's gay! That's fucked up!"

"It is nothing of the sort," she said, sticking her refined nose in the air.

He smiled and turned his cup around. "I got fucked up brothers. Leo's missing. I got to rescue his punk ass again." The idea of rescuing Leo from a filthy dungeon actually made his heart warm with nostalgia and he sniffed.

"Your brother's in trouble?" she asked, taking a dainty sip of her drink, holding out her pinky.

He growled to himself.

"Oh!" She held out her hand to him, as if to stop him from moving. He looked back and forth in confusion. "That sound you just made. That… manly groaning."

"What about it?" He leaned back in his chair, fighting off offense.

"Why, you must have women all over you. A rugged and masculine thing like you. With your rough, streetwise mouth and your sensitive eyes and arms like ropey pythons and your thighs that could strangle an elk." She fanned herself with a napkin.

Raph thought he may be able to strangle an elk with his thighs, but wasn't sure how Blanche knew that. He scoffed in his throat. The sound disgusted him and he swallowed. "Not really. I'm not… well… I'm ugly."

"Ugly?" she exclaimed and giggled. "Sweetheart, you are not ugly. I don't have to see you to know that. If there is anything Blanche Devereaux knows, it's men. And I know you're a handsome devil. You won't give me a peek under that coat?" She went slightly cross-eyed. Raph presumed she was mentally undressing him.

"You need to get spayed, Blanche. What's with all this talk about sex and shit? I think about it as much as the next guy who can't get laid, but fuck, woman. Get a new hobby." Raph tossed back the rest of his whiskey and enjoyed the little bit of burn he could still feel as it went down. "Well, it was nice talking to you, but I got to get back to the boat."

* * *

"FUCK!" Raph screamed into the balmy tropical air. It sounded a little different than when he normally screamed obscenities into the damp frozen air of New York. He had stayed at the Rusty Anchor too long and now the boat glided along on the dark ocean, headed towards Mexico.

"Oh, honey, it'll be fine. Your brother'll still be in jail waiting for you a day later. Just get on a plane…"

Raph pushed her aside and stormed into the protection of darkness, leaning against the brick wall as he opened his jacket and pulled out his sais, even though there was nothing to fight here. "You don't fucking get it! He'll be dead! He ain't some stupid college kid that got drunk in public on Spring Break!"

"You're really worried, aren't you?" She took a hold of his arm and he pulled away with a loud growl, hoping she couldn't see inside of his jacket. "Well, I can get you to Mexico, if that's what you need. Just call the Ambassador at the U.S. Consulate and tell him you're a friend of Blanche Devereaux and make sure to tell him that I say he's a bad man and deserves to be spanked." She looked Raph up and down as his thick chest rose and fell heavily and a little burst of anger forced one of his sai points into the wall, the force of it nearly dislodging a brick. "On second thought, I'll call him and tell him that myself, sugar."

* * *

Within ten minutes Blanche had arranged for a man who owned his own chain of funeral homes to pick him up in a hearse and drive him to the airport. Another man named Enrique Mas paid for his plane ticket. He sat in the cargo hold, staring at his first class ticket through the whole flight, wondering exactly what kind of favors Blanche had performed to get it for him and secretly thought he knew the answer.


	3. Picture It, New York, 2012

_I know that Sophia's story is a little abstract, but I kind of like it. I mean, it's a little off her style._

**Picture It… New York, 2011**

Even little old ladies weren't safe on the streets of New York City, Leo thought sourly as he pushed a Purple Dragon into the brick wall, grabbing him by the hair and knocking his head into the brick. Well, that was the last one. Time to disappear into the shadows and wait for the police and paramedics to arrive on the scene to help the old woman. Just a normal Saturday night.

He needed something else to do on Saturday nights. Like dates. With females. Oh, well. He'd have to settle for violence. It was alright with him.

But as he silently leapt onto the bottom of the fire escape, he turned his head to look back at the victim. She was a stooped old woman with white hair like a football helmet and she was hitting one of her attackers in the face with her wicker purse. He suppressed a giggle and the lady stopped and said, "I know you're over there. What are you going to do? Leave an old lady to get jumped again?"

And then the Purple Dragon knocked the old lady on the ground again and Leo jumped down from the fire escape and landed a hard blow to the top of his head. He retreated back the shadow of a dumpster while she sat on the ground, rubbing her backside.

"I haven't been on my backside in an alley with two strange men since that time I got my day planner mixed up and had to two blind dates on the same night. Good thing they both turned out to be gay."

Leo didn't quite understand that and yelled, "Are you alright, ma'am?"

"Yeah… I mean, no!" She rubbed the back of her neck. "Oh, I think I'm paralyzed!"

His feet twitched, trying not to walk out into the light. "Are you! Just stay still then!"

"Are you deaf, Spiderman! I just said I'm paralyzed. I was going to get up and do a tarantella because I get a handicap placard, but I think I'll stay down here."

His break wrinkled in offense. Spiderman? He was nothing like Spiderman. Leo was real and Spiderman was a stupid character in one of Mikey's comic books. "I'm coming out to check on you, ma'am. But you have to promise to close your eyes first." He waited and she craned her neck around, her wide eyes magnified by her glasses. "I said close your eyes!" he reprimanded.

She closed them and he silently took a few steps. Then she opened them and bent backwards in shock. He was ugly. Big, green and ugly. And now she would scream and he would run away.

"You related to Salvador Petrillo?"

"No. Why?" That was an odd question.

"He was my husband. You remind me of him. He had a big head and wide mouth and tended to go green when he saw me with another man." She gave the thug another whack with her purse and he groaned.

"I'm… not human, actually. And I'm not supposed to show myself to anybody. Please don't tell anyone that you saw me."

Leo reached down to help the old lady to her feet. She held on to his hand and looked down and blinked a few times. "Yeah, I just met a giant karate fighting turtle in an alley. Let me go brag about to all my friends on canasta night. Maybe they can get me on the list for the most exclusive nut house in Miami."

She limped a few steps down the alley and he said, "Wait, I thought you were paralyzed. How are you walking?"

"Oh… uh… it comes and goes. Right now it's going. Like me. Goodbye." She hobbled further into the alley.

Leo took a few quick steps beside her. "You shouldn't go down there. It's dangerous."

"I grew up in Sicily and I've been walking down dark alleys since before you were hatched. How old are you anyway?"

"Sixteen. How old are you?" He gasped and said, "I'm so sorry. I know it's rude to ask a lady her age."

She hit him in the arm with her purse and said, "Yeah, I get mistaken for Megan Fox a lot. I'm 88."

"Well, I'll escort you on your way then. I can't let you get hurt." It felt like he was walking backwards, they were going so slowly.

"Is it just me or are you carrying swords?" she asked, looking at his katanas out of the corner of her eye. "It could just be me. I had my dosage changed last week. I thought that mugger was a coin operated horse and I was about to stick a quarter up his nose and go for a ride."

Leo took her firmly by the arm and marched her along, surveying the distance between the next corner and the darkness that lay beyond. Always another enemy. The never ending battle. All those lives he'd cut short. Could he ever repay them? The blood on his hands…

"You know in Sicily, this would be the equivalent of a Honeymoon," the old lady said. "So, stud, do you have a girlfriend?"

His face instantly heated. "No, ma'am. I'm too young."

She looked him up and down. "So it has nothing to do with you having no toys for her play with?"

"What?" He stumbled slightly at the insinuation. "I am anatomically correct! My… endowments are inside my shell. Not that it's any of your business. Where are we going?"

"I'm going to pay a visit to this bum Johnny No Thumbs. He moved up here after my uncle Vito threatened to use his kneecaps as coasters."

Leo laughed. "Johnny No Thumbs? I know him. He's… an idiot." There was no other way to put it. "My brother owes him a lot of money. I keep telling him to stay away, but he does what he likes."

She winked at him and gave his arm a little squeeze. "Just leave it to me. One call to Sicily and Johnny'll be buoy out in the river."

He couldn't resist laughing and stifled his rudeness. "Thank you for your generous offer, but Raph's perfectly capable of killing Johnny if he feels so inclined." He panicked and added, "Not that he would." He felt a sharp bolt of pain in his arm and winced. A long gash. Blood oozing down his arm and splashed onto his side.

The old lady noticed the sharp intake of breath and said, "Here, let me see it."

"No, I'm okay." He held his breath as he spoke.

She stopped and let go of his arm so she could gesture emphatically and look up at the sky. "Why do you think I'm looking at it for you? Maybe I want to make myself feel better, knowing that you got the worst of it. Let me see it."

Leo obeyed and pivoted in place so she could see the mangled arm. "It's not as bad as it looks."

Her cold fingers prodded his bicep. "Ah, no kidding. When I was a kid in Sicily I saw toddlers with worse injuries fighting over toys in nursery school."

"You're from Sicily?" he asked as he pulled his arm away and pulled out his sewing kit off his belt.

"Picture it… Sicily… 1918," she said, with a grand gesture. He admired her presence. She was only about five foot tall, but she filled the whole alley. "A beautiful peasant girl with a butt you could bounce a quarter on goes to the town watering hole…"

"To fetch a pail of water…" Leo mumbled automatically.

"No!" She slapped him on the arm.

He hissed and yelled, "Ouch!" even though he barely felt the slap. It seemed only polite to feign an injury when beaten by an old woman.

"One of the locals had thrown her brother in after giving him a necklace for a birthday present. It happened to have a cinder block attached to the end. Well, she leaned over to look into the water for him and fell in. As she saw her life flashing before her eyes, which was quite a treat because she got laid a lot, she felt a pair of strong arms around her waist. She's been saved by a stranger."

"She was okay?" He walked as slowly as he could and the old lady still jogged a little. Sort of a penguin-like trot.

"She was more than okay. The stranger was a Samurai visiting Sicily. He was from Spain and he was on his way to America, but he took a wrong turn back in Madrid and didn't want to stop for directions. Anyway, the Samurai fell madly in love with the peasant girl. She ran away with him and they lived underground in the sewers together with his pet rat, Pedro."

Leo ground his teeth uncomfortably.

"But soon the peasant girl learned that the Samurai always practiced nine hours a day, but once she moved in, his training shifted to the bedroom. He was always talking honor and he was a real bossy nag. And he was always blaming himself for everything and had kind of a martyr complex. But he had a tight ass and knew how to use his sword, if you know what I mean. Then he died suddenly in a fight over the price of an overcooked manicotti."

"What?" Leo stopped and looked at her, his brows wrinkled in confusion. "He was a Samurai. How did he get killed so easily?"

She jabbed him in the side and his muscle twitched involuntarily. "Glad you asked that." She took his arm again and motioned to him to keep walking. "He spent so much time making passionate love to the peasant girl that he forgot to train. Although he would have lived if he'd realized that his pelvis could have broken concrete after all the exercise it got. And so the peasant girl took Pedro the rat and moved to New York, but something sinister followed them." She looked at him solemnly and said, "That peasant girl was me. And that sinister follower… was… the Spanish influenza."

He screwed up his face and wanted to let go of her arm.

"So, when was the last time you had any action?" She pointed towards a door in the back alley.

He surveyed the area for enemies and saw nothing but trash and stray cats. "Just a few minutes ago. It wasn't much, but I'll take anything I can get."

"Sounds like me after thirty years of marriage," she said, her voice reverberating the old world tones of Sicily off the brick alley walls.

The back door to a seedy money exchange store burst open and a man landed in a puddle face first. A midget with huge arms followed, rubbing his hands together. "Don't let me catch you coming around here no more. This is Johnny's turf."

The man pulled himself out of the puddle and said, "But Tony! They weren't tacos! They were chalupas! Not even the same."

"Same country. Johnny's got dibs on Mexico. Go back to selling egg rolls." The midget thug glanced into the shadows and spotted the old lady. "Hey, grandma. Get lost unless you want them to find nothing but your wicker purse. Which is nice, by the way. My mother has one just like it."

Sophia took a few steps forward. "Yeah, it was the only one big enough to hold six Denny's rolls. You call yourself a mobster? I'm from Brooklyn and Sicily. I've seen harder gangsters in diapers in preschool. Now go get Johnny. I'll be waiting out here, keeping an eye on your perimeter. I got a medic alert bracelet and I can get the cops here quicker than you can say, 'I've fallen and I can't get up.'"

Leo bit his lip and repressed a laugh, then stepped out of the shadows after the chalupa salesman had limped around the corner and Bald Tony went back in the building, hollering for Johnny. "You're a very tough woman. You could rival my brother Raph. I think you'd scare him."

She sat on a trash can and held her purse on her lap, squinting into the darkness for enemies. "You're brother is scary? I bet he's nothing but a pussycat."

Leo couldn't remember Raph ever referred to as a pussycat and it was the strangest comparison he'd ever heard.

The back door creaked open a crack and Johnny's eyeball peaked into the darkness. "Butch? That you?"

"It's me," Leo said, stepping forward from the shadows, wondering if he looked as impressive as he felt. "I escorted this lady to see you."

"Hello, No Thumbs. I finally made it. So… how do you like your toenails? Still ingrowing?"

Johnny whipped the door open and pointed dramatically at the old lady. "Sophia! That is not you! There is no such thing as a curse! And even if there was…" His tone shifted to a whine. "Don't curse me, Sophia! I didn't do anything to you!"

She took a few steps forward and whacked him with her wicker purse. "You stole my marinara recipe! It's been in the family since Stalin was in training pants! And the joke's on you, No Thumbs. I already cursed you! Why do you think none of those deadbeats you loan money to will never pay you back?"

Johnny pointed dramatically at Sophia again, his nose wrinkled with rage. "Hey, it ain't my fault that Butch had to pay for his brother to have a kidney transplant. Hey, how are you doing, by the way? Did the pissing get easier for you?"

Leo jerked as he realized that his own urine was in question. "Excuse me, sir! I don't think that it's appropriate for you to discuss…"

"Hey, shut up. I work alone," Sophia muttered out of the side of her mouth. "That boy had to have his kidneys out? Boloney! That was all my doing. Why do you think the Euro's failing? It was a punishment for making so many ugly little cars. Who are supposed to use those? Smurfs?"

"That was your doing?" Johnny's eyebrows wriggled with anxiety and Leo's hand relaxed as it unconsciously tensed as he anticipated drawing a weapon. He wouldn't hurt Johnny. Just threaten him. Probably. "How do I make it stop?"

Sophia's glasses went askew as she smirked with smug triumph and she thumped her wicker purse against her stomach for emphasis. "You have to do an act of great generosity."

"Generosity?" Johnny asked as if he'd never heard the word.

"Yeah. You leave your ear trumpet at home? I said generosity." Leo looked down at her and mostly saw the top of her white curly head. He admired the presence contained in such a small space. Greatness wasn't determined by size. His Sensei was a prime example of that.

"What should I do then?" Johnny took a step backward and gestured behind him.

Leo heard shuffling. He stepped forward and put a hand on a katana hilt, shaking his head slightly. He knew that was all he needed to do.

Johnny sighed and stepped back into the alley.

Sophia said slowly, "Well, you could forgive the debts of those guys who won't pay you, since that's the source of the curse. That would square it all away."

"Sure! Leon, I forgive Butch's debts. I promise I won't send no more guys with bombs into the sewers looking for you guys no more. And it was nice to see you again, Sophia. You look great, by the way. Nice perm. How's your Uncle in Sicily?"

"Dead," she said automatically, then blinked with some kind of realization and said. "That's what they call him now, I mean, that he's the head of the Scarpezi family they call him Dead Vito."

Johnny sidled back towards the door. "Well, you tell Butch he's in the clear, Leon. And it was good to see you again, Sophia. Nice purse. See ya. My… dinner's burning…" And he scurried inside like a frightened rabbit.

Leo waited until the mobsters were all out of earshot and watching The Sopranos in the Johnny's office and then turned to Sophia, bowing low. "I must say that I have met a very wise person tonight. It was an impressive defeat using nothing but the mind. I never thought I would meet anyone as wise as my father. The elderly…"

"Save it for your inauguration speech. You sound like Henry Kissinger with a mouth full of Novocain."

Leo fought off a scowl. He knew better than to chastise an elder. Maybe he did sound rather pompous. "Could you give me some advice then?"

She pushed her purse up on her arm to prepare for more hearty hand gestures. "I'll tell you the same thing that my father told me. For sixteen generations this knowledge has been passed down in our family. So you better cherish it. I haven't even told my own grandchildren. I would, but Big Sally or the schmuck might find out."

He leaned in closer. "Yes?"

"Cut back on the green vegetables. You look like the Jolly Green Giant." And with that, she shuffled down the alley towards the street, her wicker handbag swinging on her arm.


End file.
